See Also Sidebar

See Also Sidebar

Display related notes from frontmatter in a dedicated sidebar view.

Table of contents

• Overview
• Features
• Installation
• Usage
• Configuration
• Privacy & Data Access
• Development
• License

Overview

See Also Sidebar reads a see-also property from the active note frontmatter and renders related notes in a sidebar panel.

📋 Data Access Notice: This plugin includes an optional "Automatic suggestions" feature that, when enabled, reads the list of all markdown files in your vault to find notes with shared tags. This feature is disabled by default and all processing is local—no data leaves your device. See Privacy & Data Access for details.

Features

• Sidebar view for related notes
• Safe click behavior: resolves to existing files before opening, never creates notes from sidebar clicks
• Support for multiple see-also formats
• Ribbon icon to open the sidebar
• Optional default behavior to open related notes in a new tab
• Optional automatic suggestions based on shared tags
• Optional grouped mode for automatic suggestions
• Excluded tags list to keep high-volume tags such as daily notes out of automatic suggestions
• Configurable sidebar heading text
• Editable custom group label (validated on save, not while typing)

Installation

This plugin is now in the Obsidian Community Plugins directory!

Manual installation

1. Build or obtain plugin release files: main.js, manifest.json, and styles.css.
2. Create this folder in your vault:

<YourVault>/.obsidian/plugins/see-also-sidebar/

1. Copy files into that folder.
2. In Obsidian, go to Settings -> Community plugins.
3. Enable See Also Sidebar.

Usage

Add a see-also property to a note frontmatter block.

YAML list format (recommended)

---
see-also:
  - Note A
  - Note B
  - Concepts/Note C
---

Inline array format

---
see-also: [Note A, Note B, Concepts/Note C]
---

Single string

---
see-also: Note A
---

With wikilinks, aliases, and headings

---
see-also:
  - "[[Note A]]"
  - "[[Long Technical Note|Quick summary]]"
  - "Architecture#API Layer"
---

Automatic suggestions

When Automatic suggestions is enabled, notes that share tags with the active note are suggested in addition to explicit see-also entries.

Behavior details:

• Explicit see-also entries are always included (unless hidden via Custom links position setting).
• With grouping disabled, automatic suggestions are merged into one flat list.
• With grouping enabled, explicit entries are rendered under the configured Custom group label, and automatic entries are rendered directly under tag headers.
• When grouping is enabled, the Custom links position setting controls where explicit entries appear: above automatic suggestions (default), below automatic suggestions, or hidden.
• In grouped mode, there is no intermediate Suggestions heading.
• The active note is never included in automatic suggestions.
• Duplicate notes are shown only once.
• Tags listed under Excluded tags are ignored, so notes related only through one of those tags are not suggested.

Configuration

Settings location:

• Settings -> Community plugins -> See Also Sidebar

Settings reference

Excluded tags

Use this to keep high-volume tags out of the sidebar. For example, if every daily note carries a daily-notes tag, adding daily-notes to the list stops the sidebar from filling up with daily notes.

Enter one tag per line:

daily-notes
#journal
work/meetings

The leading # is optional, values are lowercased, and duplicates are removed. Entries are tidied into this one-per-line form when you leave the field.

Excluded tags are removed from matching on both sides: they are ignored on the active note and on candidate notes. A note that also shares a non-excluded tag with the active note still appears, grouped under that other tag. This setting only affects automatic suggestions; explicit see-also entries are never filtered.

Privacy & Data Access

This plugin operates locally within your vault and does not send data to external services.

Vault file enumeration

When automatic suggestions are enabled, the plugin accesses the list of all markdown files in your vault using vault.getMarkdownFiles(). This is necessary to:

• Find notes that share tags with the active note
• Build automatic suggestions based on tag relationships

This enumeration:

• Only occurs when Automatic suggestions is enabled in settings (disabled by default)
• Reads file paths and metadata, not file contents
• Processes data locally; no information leaves your device
• Makes no external network requests and does not transmit vault paths/content
• Can be completely avoided by keeping automatic suggestions disabled

When automatic suggestions are disabled, the plugin only accesses:

• The active note's frontmatter
• Files explicitly listed in the see-also property

Development

Build from source:

npm install
npm run lint
npm run build

For watch mode:

npm run dev

License

This project includes a LICENSE file at the repository root.